Sadly, Lucy's life is a set up, and she must either come to terms with that truth or live in her family's fantasy. Her love interest, played by Sandler, feels that she deserves the truth. So, he makes a tape with important events she has missed since October 13, and news reels from the accident, so she understands her situation. Lucy has also filmed him to make sure she stays up to date on where their relationship stands. She relies on him to tell her how they feel about each other and she says at one point, "It still feels like the first time."
This method seems to work most of the time, so she also starts writing in a journal every night before she goes to sleep. One day, however, she finds the journal, and throws it into a fire because she feels there is no future for their relationship. She feels that burning the pages of her journal will erase him from her memory forever so she can continue her falsified life created by her family everyday.
After she burns the pages, Sandler's character decides to move forward with his plan to go on a solo sailing journey. Eventually, he learns that she is living at the brain institute and has been staying busy. Upon hearing this, Sandler goes to her and tries to get her to remember him. She cannot remember, but does say she has had dreams about him and relies on the tape he created to learn more about her situation everyday. Somehow, she realizes he must really love her, so they get married, have a child, and live together on his boat.
Essentially, this ending, is extremely unrealistic, but there are other qualms that I have with this movie. For example, her condition, entitled Goldfield Syndrome, is extremely falsified. Supposedly, she cannot convert the short term memory to long term memory while she sleeps. Sleep has been researched in relation to memory, and it has been found that, without sleep, we are compromising our capacity to put our experiences into memory. So, it is true that one with functioning memory systems would need sleep in order for the memories to turn over, or consolidate. Consolidation, an important part of memory that is not addressed in this movie, is a process that relies on time to stabilize our experiences so we can have a permanent record put into our memory. The specific brain regions and processes that are involved in consolidation can depend on the characteristics of the memory that is being formed. Essentially, it is more complicated than just going to sleep and then waking up remembering everything one did the day before.
Another movie that addresses memory loss, is "The Notebook," which focuses on the story of a couple and the journey to find their love for each other again. The main character, Allie, has Alzheimer's, so cannot remember her past. She is in a nursing home, so she has an elderly man come and tell the story of their love. At the end of the movie, when the man comes to read to her, Allie does remember him. She asks, "What's going to happen when I can't remember anything anymore?" And he says, "I'll help you, I'll read to you."
At the end of the movie, they say goodbye to each other, and fall asleep together. The next morning, a nurse finds them together, still holding hands. Clearly, the memories of their love were too strong to fade for Allie, even though she has Alzheimer's. This is a semi-unrealistic account of how poignant memories can prevail even when one appears to have lost most memories.
5
The younger and older versions of Allie and Noah in "The Notebook"